Dreaming of Electric Sheep
by warplane
Summary: As Chell adjusts to life on the surface, Wheatley finds himself back in the facility. Completely at GlaDOS' mercy, he is surprisingly quick to accept his new position as test subject, but fears what became of his only friend, her fate unknown to him. Warnings: abuse, some violence. Primarily a redemption fic; expect some woobification. Includes Fact/Space/Adventure Cores. WIP.
1. Prologue

_That's life, that's what all the people say_  
_You're riding high in April, shot down in May_  
_But I know I'm gonna change that tune_  
_When I'm back on top, back on top in June_

_I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem_  
_Some people get their kicks stomping on a dream_  
_But I don't let it, let it get me down_  
_'Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinning around_

A limp body swung ever so slightly in the grasp of a metal claw, suspended in the air from the ceiling; his eyes were open wide, unblinking, and yet they moved within his head methodologically, as if on a schedule. They looked around but at nothing in particular, illuminating the otherwise dark, glass-encased room with their brilliant white light. Various body parts from other androids littered the floor - metal rods, plastic sheaths, synthetic skin. Arms, wire clusters, headless bodies; the sole intact android glossed over them with his bright eyes, unreacting, and the points of light they created rocked slowly in the darkness.

The facility was quiet and routine. Abandoned machines whirred away idly. Production lines seamlessly went about their duties even in the absence of human guidance. Some lights flickered; many hummed. But the facility stood intact, caught in a perpetual loop in time.

The testing chambers were frozen in place - the sunny-eyed robot and her bluer companion were nowhere to be found. They'd long since been disassembled, having out-served their purpose, the euphoria achieved through their efforts rendered negligible. It wasn't enough anymore; months of rigorous, non-stop testing, _thousands_ of chambers, new ones and old. They'd done them all, but something had been missing. Something had always been missing.

So She had stopped reassembling them.

Far below Her control room, another body lay on its back, lifeless and still, within the suffocating heat of the incinerator. Its synthetic pink hair had been singed by the fires.

* * *

_I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king,_  
_I've been up and down and over and out, and I know one thing_  
_Each time I find myself flat on my face_  
_I pick myself up and get back in the race_

_That's life, I tell you, I can't deny it_  
_I thought of quitting, baby, but my heart just ain't gonna buy it_  
_And if I didn't think it was worth one single try_  
_I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly_

The wheat fields were bare. A thin layer of fresh now blanketed the ground, and the air was cold, carrying a wintry serenity with it. The world outside seemed as if it was in a slumber, animated only by the occasional junco fluttering through the brush. It was a dead, dark-skied peace, a tranquil but melancholy end to a bold, crisp autumn.

Chell's quaint and welcoming home was much warmer, bringing her a sense of comfort that she'd missed since the last days of summer. She'd enjoyed the fall season well enough - spiced apples, colourful leaves, the earthy scent it left behind - but Michigan was now frigid, and she longed for sunny days.

She'd always hated change. She learned to adapt, but she disliked it the whole way through, and the seasons had thrown her off focus with every transition. She put up a stubborn resistance when autumn came, and again with the arrival of winter - futile, she knew, and perhaps rather childish, but she had hoped that, on the surface, she'd only have to learn to adapt once.

And settling down had been difficult, no doubt. After all, she hadn't been to the surface since she was a child, and how long ago had that been? Well over a decade, maybe even two, she wagered - she couldn't quite remember how old she'd been on the day of the incident, but looking at her reflection she guessed she was in her mid-twenties. She wasn't even sure if this supposition was useful; there was scattered evidence that led her to believe the time that had passed was either much shorter or much longer than her appearance offered. She'd seen the potatoes in her expedition through Aperture a second time, and though she found it nigh ludicrous to use potatoes of all things as affirmation, not a single one looked rotten. All around her she had seen decay, neglect. But then there was the possibility of sterility, and the condition of her own body - had her growth been accelerated? unchanged? hindered by her stasis? She reckoned it didn't much matter regardless. The time she had seen pass in the facility had no meaning to her, and she'd done her fair share of sleuthing since finding her footing outside of it, but information had been hard to come by. Her knowledge was still limited, and she was without any form of paperwork; most of what she knew had come from Aperture files, long before she'd been cast out into the world.

She hadn't traveled far from the tiny shed that had granted her freedom. Her first destination, though not one she had chosen herself, had been a women's shelter far into the suburbs. To get there she had hitchhiked to "someplace with a bed," as she'd told the unsettled woman who had been kind enough to stop. Chell didn't know what to tell the staff at the shelter, so she hadn't said much at all. They'd treated her with a degree of concern that almost made her uneasy, telling her that she exhibited many signs of psychogenic amnesia, like the scarring on her knees, circular wounds on both sides, where the old long fall boots had been bolted; the excessive bruising all over her body, her battle wounds from a hard fight to personal liberty; but most of all, they'd said, the lost, "broken" look on her face.

She left when they started asking the public for information, knowing they wouldn't find anything of substance. They had been so fixated on finding family rather than helping her simply establish herself, and she'd been discouraged by their insistence that she didn't know herself better than they did. To an extent, she understood - she was an adult, she knew, but the reality of the matter was that she had little to no adult skills. Even so, she found no benefit to being categorised as ill in some way, no less as an implication alluding to her lack of resources in the real world.

After slipping out unregarded, she returned to the countryside. There was refuge in all sorts of places, she quickly discovered, but it was the old wooden barn that had given her the most.

It was dusk when she found it - she'd just built a fire, one of few things she seemed to know from a time she couldn't remember in itself, and was trying to warm up but the damp and rotting tinder on the ground proved to be useless. It didn't take her long to recall that dry wood burned best, and hastily she'd trekked deeper into the woodlands in hopes of finding material more suitable before the last rays of the sun faded away. She considered the option of burning wheat from the nearby fields, as surely nobody would miss them, and they were bound to be drier than the mush beneath her feet. Emerging from the thicket, she came to realise that the fields around her were no longer wheat but corn. Past the tall stalks, however, she'd happened upon the barn, the sole structure in Chell's reduced sight, and curiously she'd ventured inside. It was warm and dry, a luxury she'd been denied in the wild, and without hesitation she abandoned her meager fire for the stable refuge.

She'd been awakened the next morning by a perplexed but slightly amused man in his late 30s. His expression, she had noted rather quickly, was gentle and warm, something she had not yet been afforded by anybody else. "D'ja take a wrong turn, young lady?" he had asked her, the vague smile auditory in his words. She had opted to tell him the truth, that she was homeless and alone with no connections to the world around her. The man appeared to accept this with no suspicion or judgement, and he took a liking to her almost immediately. Without hesitation he'd offered her sanctuary at his home.

Less than a mile from the barn the cornfields revealed narrow paths through which to walk, and beyond them she could see homes in the distance where the crops gave way to grassy meadows. The homes were set far apart but neighbourly nonetheless, lined up along a paved road; the man's home in particular was neatly kept, even more so than the others, a fresh coat of beige paint covering the wooden siding. To Chell, the sunlight gleaming off the walls made the outside of the home look as golden as the late-summer harvest, as welcoming as a stranger's abode could be, yet still she was hesitant to accept the man's proposal. She kept her uncertainly internal, remaining silent as they approached the road and only half listening to his ramblings on the weather.

She was taking careful time weighing her options when she'd suddenly found herself exuberantly greeted by two tiny figures who had sprung from the front door and bounded over to her. An endless stream of questions erupted from the children, both attempting to be heard over the other.

"Daddy, who's this?"

"My name is Libby!"

"Can we show her the bunnies?"

The small but shrill voices swiftly put Chell at ease, their presence coaxing a genuine smile from her face. Then, a woman emerged from the open doorway, a dishtowel draped over her hands as she rubbed them together. A polite but honest grin highlighted her fair face, locks of soft brown hair framing its figure. Chell saw the woman in the children's profiles also; from the looks of it, together they made a family, and somehow they, as a unit, had made her feel truly and gladly received. They'd welcomed her with open arms, having no qualms in sharing their food, shelter and bath. For the first time since she could remember, Chell felt safe.

And yet this house of theirs was still not _home_ to her, welcoming though it was and much to her chagrin. So, and within the week of her arrival, when the woman offered her a small home of her own to rent, Chell gratefully accepted. The estate, she'd explained, had been her recently deceased mother's, but the humble home had been a place of growing up for the woman, and she was reluctant to sell it. But without a need for two homes, it went neglected for the few months it was vacant. What better way, she'd told Chell, than to lend it to a friend in need?

It was cozy and only a few miles from the family's residence, giving her easy access to things she needed but couldn't obtain on her own. She'd even found work at a ranch far down the road; Chell had been wary of the animals at first, namely the horses, but it was a hindrance that quickly faded. She'd found them to be far more gentle than their teeth had let on, and they were always appreciative of her presence - it meant only food and fresh water to them, of that she was sure, but they'd been docile nonetheless, and she supposed she didn't mind why they tolerated her, so long as they did. Their hardiness when the rain became snow had somehow given her strength.

And the ranch owners were patient with her, despite her inexperience in the line of work. When she gave it a moment of thought, she realised that, despite her inexperience in general, despite her rawness at _living_ (she was under the impression the couple's children knew more basic things about life than she), Chell had built and continued to maintain a new existence for herself remarkably fast. Despite her reluctance to change, nobody could ever tell her she wasn't good at it.

But still she was lonely, and the colder days had somehow seemed to aggrandise that. With all she had found on the surface, an emptiness persisted in her - one that, she knew, hadn't always been there.

Could she call it disappointment, despite all her extraordinary luck? Something beyond her better life left some sort of hole within her. It wasn't disappointment with what she had found, she gathered; it was disappointment in what she hadn't.

On clear nights she looked up at the moon and felt that loneliness lift, if but for a fleeting moment, and with it followed a unique misery that carried until the sun signaled dawn. This hadn't been what she wanted, not really. She was out, she was free; she'd made it. But it wasn't enough.

And it would never be enough. After their encounter, and in spite of the hurtful betrayal, she hadn't wanted to make it alone.

They were supposed to have made it together.

* * *

_I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king,_  
_I've been up and down and over and out, and I know one thing_  
_Each time I find myself flat on my face_  
_I pick myself up and get back in the race_

_That's life; that's life, and I can't deny it_  
_Many times I thought of cutting out, but my heart won't buy it_  
_But if there's nothing shaking come this here July_  
_I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die_  
_My, my..._

**_Spaaaace!_**

Every time the excitable core passed him, he swore he could hear that mindless prattle again.

**_Gotta see it all._**

But the space enthusiast had quickly lost his signature gusto, mimed in the sheer silence of their new home's vacuum. The flailing had stopped; the constant stream of soundless words his robotic lips formed were still visible as he floated somewhat calmly in orbit, but the passion in his being had dissipated long ago.

If he was permitted a guess, Wheatley would wager his fellow android was scared.

He'd been rather grateful at first for the silence, and when he managed to steal a glance at Rick every now and then, it was evident that he too was - or had been, at some point - enjoying the nothingness. Wheatley could only imagine how long the green-eyed casanova had had to endure the inane drivel on space.

Now, they were in it, a reality that settled rather unpleasantly in Wheatley's mind. With time the silence had become somewhat agonising, growing deafening in its own way, and - even worse - had left him isolated with his thoughts. To a degree, he'd accepted the notion that he deserved it, more than he wished to concede. He couldn't talk his way out of this one. And yet, facing his regret and the tormenting hindsight -

At times, it was too much.

He had a single rebellious thought, one he used to fight tooth and nail against every self-destructive retort he knew he'd earned, but not even his good intentions could erase the looming actuality of his mistakes. And he knew this, _but he didn't mean to,_ and she'd trusted him, _but he didn't mean to,_ and he'd betrayed her, _but he didn't mean to,_ and he'd only wanted her to stay, and she'd _left_, and she had never much cared for him anyway, so what did it matter?

But deep within his processor he knew he was the sole villain, his own worst enemy. In the end, he had more or less cast himself into this nihilistic void. Even as the corruption of _Her_ chassis had begun to take hold of him, part of Wheatley was well aware of his situation. He'd remembered everything. She'd tried to break his fall when he first ventured from the relative safety of his management rail. She'd listened to all his ideas - his stupid, stupid ideas - with a loyalty he'd never known in this life. She'd done everything he had asked (with a clear mind, rather) as if she looked up to him. And in the end, even when he'd tried to kill her, when he _turned_ on her, she held on.

She'd held on, just as he had; all it would have taken was a quick kick, and they'd have both been free of each other. But they had held on, suspended in the harsh vacuum of space, unwilling to ease their burdens. He'd looked at her, met her gaze; all that time she had remained resolute, as if made of stone, but for a brief moment, looking back at him, her fortitude had broken. The corruption in his processor had been washed out as they were sucked into zero gravity, the connection between him and the chassis severed, and she had noticed the clarity return to him. His optics reverted from a compromised red to their original brilliant blue; he became _himself_ again, or as much as he'd ever remembered being, and without a word she had understood.

But in the end, her hold hadn't been enough.

Wheatley caught the sight of the space core drifting past him. He was curled into a tight ball, limbs tucked uncharacteristically neatly in front of him, shaking his head.

Wheatley accessed the network between the three stranded cores; it wasn't very strong and none of them had any connections with the rest of Aperture's network, but the little accress they had gave them a small outlet of communication. On their brunette companion's end came an endless stream of the same thing.

_**wannagohomewannagohomewannag ohomewannagohomewannagohomew annagohome-**_

He severed the connection, almost pained. Home, was it? Wheatley took pity on the space core, amplified by his own misery. For decades the space core had wanted this; having it now, he'd suddenly had second thoughts, so much so that he wished to return to Aperture. And to call it home, of all things - lonely as the moon's orbit was, Wheatley gave no thought to his preference of it over the facility. There was nothing there for them but despair.

Even so, space had not much else to offer. Far off into the distance, Rick came into view. Wheatley twisted himself around to look at him before sending a thought his way on the network, pointing at the space core.

_Did you know he has a name?_

But Rick ignored him as usual, not granting him so much as a scowl; ever since they'd been cast into space, Rick hadn't accessed the network once. Wheatley assumed he was tired of the space core and even more tired of the idiot who'd caused this whole mess - and really, Wheatley couldn't blame him.

But between his personal isolation and the space core's relative incoherence (though he often found himself sending thoughts to him regardless), Wheatley had nobody to confide in. Lately he'd been spending his time trying to channel some good out of his self-ruining regret.

He found practicing his apology to be somewhat relieving, albeit delusional; nevertheless, it helped him organise all the things he desperately wanted to tell her. He had a number of detailed scenarios planned out, some easier than others to imagine. He went over his favourite in his head: he'd made it back on Earth, somehow, and she was _right there_ waiting for him - ideally far away from the facility, somewhere on the surface - and when she saw him she'd smile. No, no; she'd be angry, naturally, best not to gloss over that bit. She'd be angry but he'd spill his little electronic heart out regardless.

_L-Look, I, uh, I-I know I don't deserve your forgiveness but if you could just- if you could maybe listen for just a moment, I'd... it- ah, well, where do I begin? Haha... eurgh. I-I do recall trying to, uh, kill you, even though it- that wasn't me, exactly, not really, but I was aware of everything, and killing you was a thing I definitely tried to do, no less when you- we- were... so close..._

He paused. There was no way she'd have listened to this mess.

_I'm... I'm sorry, okay? I'm sincerely sorry. I can't- that's... that's all I can say, really, that I'm so, so sorry._

_I'm sorry._

He was wasting his time, he knew; he'd never see her again. It'd been weeks since the cores had ended up here. She was either dead, finally murdered by that lunatic in charge of the facility, or she was free, never to return to what had certainly been a nightmare, and never to reflect on the horrors she'd been put through there. He hoped it was the latter - she deserved it more than anyone he knew, after all. But even if she'd made it out, she wouldn't have ever given him the time of day. She'd either forgotten he existed, or worse, she hated him. Either way he imagined she had moved on without him.

And it was his fault.

He couldn't fix things. That stung the most - he didn't even care whether or not she'd forgive him. He just wanted the chance to mend his wrongs and clear his own conscience, but he knew he'd never get that.

Turning away from Earth, Wheatley tucked himself into a tight little ball and buried his face in his knees.


	2. Chapter 1

She rapped Her fingertips on the edge of Her chassis - a large, sleek structure, originally intended to contain Her at the bottom but later fashioned into a throne of sorts after _she_ had first murdered Her. She no longer swung freely from within the chassis, as She had so enjoyed; but times, She recalled, had been simpler then, and additional stressors had made the adjustments rather necessary.

She'd found more freedom going wireless, to an extent, but the chassis was a sanctuary to Her, and She would always be angered by the change. After all, what need had She to move about, when She already had access to most of Her facility? Now, She felt closer to Her moment of conception, so to speak, when She had first been turned on. She had been a mere android then, though She was always the central intelligence system, and the chassis had been what She'd considered an upgrade. The throne, to Her, was a downgrade, though it was merely cosmetic.

But She had always had control. Having murdered Her way to relative solitude - putting the scientists in their place, She liked to remind Herself, though much of the joy was absent given their inability to accept it - She was left with nothing between Her and the one thing She liked to do. One by one, she had awoken the subjects, _thousands_ of them, and each had provided Her with a degree of satisfaction. But most were short-lived, unequipped for GLaDOS' demands. And it was true that the scientists had told Her as much, but they'd always been ones for getting in the way, rather than improving Her experience.

Once each subject exhausted their pleasure value, She did away with them in the easiest way She knew how. She had always taken a preference for the simplest solution, after all - the garbage was always to be disposed of once it had acquired such a status. That's what garbage was, wasn't it?

Yet one subject had defied such a label and survived the whole course; the final subject She had had access to for a time, She remembered, one She hadn't noticed slumbering in stasis until many unbearable years after the last had been rendered garbage. Eagerly GLaDOS brought her to consciousness and watched her complete every chamber, something that hadn't been done in- well, come to think of it, it had never been done at all. Nearing the end of the course, and much to Her dismay, she had lost that new subject spark. Disappointed, GLaDOS led the young woman to her death.

But instead of dying, as was completely routine, she vanished somewhere in the bowels of the facility that GLaDOS couldn't reach, having effectively slipped from Her grasp like an itch on the shoulder blade. And for once, She had broken Her neutral repose, suddenly stricken with disbelief. She was angry, perhaps even fearful; most of all, though, She found Herself twistedly pleased. The subject had given Her the bare minimum throughout the whole testing course - she never spoke, never gave pause and never addressed the voice guiding her to each new chamber. GLaDOS had given little in return, well aware the subject likely didn't even know that voice was alive. But when they'd finally met, the subject still hadn't said a word, denying GLaDOS what She had started to believe was a spontaneous drive to give Her something _new_, something unexpected. The subject's disposition remained aggressively determined, and yet still her very presence was somehow energising to GLaDOS.

The subject's escape had been like a completely different test, one that She had to solve as well.

GLaDOS ultimately lost the first time. Chell had been the ideal subject, but she was dangerous - she'd killed GLaDOS once, and tried to do it again, and in the end she had almost destroyed the whole facility. So GLaDOS decided she had to go, not just per her wishes but in the end per Hers as well.

She had come to regret it, however. Nothing could fully mimic the human mentality - not even Her, though She had always tried to put Herself in such a mindset, to find the things that would siphon some sort of reaction from Her subjects. But databases full of such knowledge couldn't account for the simple act of experience, and the implications things like unspoken language signaled. GLaDOS had quickly discovered that numerous elements were seemingly missing from exlusively robotic testing - a lack of predictability, emotions, pain... They were ultimately all integral to the testing experience. Robots simply couldn't replace humans. There was only one exception, if the rumours were true, and She had knocked him into space.

GLaDOS gripped the armrests of Her chassis. Her systems flooded with animosity at the thought of that fool. He'd done one thing right - bringing Chell to the mainframe, waking Her in the process. Everything else he did had only inconvenienced Her. From trying to free Her last human subject - for some unimaginable reason, at that - to intruding on Her body, ruining _miles_ of Her facility, nearly killing everything in it - space was far too good for him. GLaDOS hadn't forgotten Her plans for revenge, which She certainly still felt beyond entitled to.

She didn't know much about him or his origins, just that he was involved in that rumoured project that had been abandoned when the scientists were still stinking up Her facility. Truth be told, She didn't care to know. She'd wanted to be rid of him for good, perhaps even without thinking it through, as if She'd been pinched by a crab and gave Her all trying to shake it away. Now, She realised, She was having second thoughts; he was so accessible, so easy to repair, so easy to break. He was perfect for Her purposes, both those for science and those for reprisal. As far as She was concerned, they had unfinished business to take care of.

She had told him he wasn't ever going to come back. But perhaps, She decided, he would.

* * *

Wheatley was shrouded in _eigengrau_, hidden from the sun and Earth behind the dark side of the moon. He could see Rick's eyes glowing green a mere few dozen yards from himself, abnormally closer than the two cores had been in past sweeps. As always, Rick paid him no mind; Wheatley was beginning to wonder if Rick's vacant-seeming optics, scanning habitually in the eclipse, were even working properly.

It felt nicer in the darkness than it did in the light. Space wasn't at all like Aperture - facing the sun it was uncomfortably hot, destructive to the robots' systems, and required more idle time to prevent overheating. It was much cooler here, perhaps objectively frigid but far more merciful on their bodies.

But the feeling wasn't only physical; facing away from Earth felt right to him. The sight of the pale blue sphere set his thoughts solely on its happenings - more specifically, what he was missing. Gazing into the depths of the galaxy, on the other hand, let his mind wander more easily, and the sadness sometimes came and went. The break from consistent misery was welcomed.

What's more, the view was spectacular in the absence of the sun; a spiral galactic arm, peppered with stars and illuminated in the blackness, wrapped around their area of the universe, and if he turned himself just so, he was no longer looking at nothing. Its suspension in time was rather eerie to Wheatley. It seemed as if the only movement in space came from him and his companions, like they were the sole things left alive, and the cosmos before them was merely a painting left by an artisan long gone. Though he was often lonely, the beauty of his surroundings, however spacious, never ceased to amaze him.

The Milky Way, was it? And what of the sun and moon - Sol and Luna, he thought. But the scientists had always called them _the_ sun and _the_ moon, as if they were the only sun and moon in existence. And yet he saw here that _the_ sun was just _a_ sun, _a_ star - one of trillions -

_**Core recall initiated.**_

It was an internalised message, one Wheatley hadn't received in years. Its abruptness caught him off guard; why was it coming up now? Was his system on the fritz? Momentarily he suspected he might be dying, and he nearly panicked. He looked at Rick, visible in the light of his optics, to see if perhaps he was reacting to an announcement on his end as well.

Instead, the puzzled look on his face was directed at Wheatley himself. Wheatley pointed at his own chest; in response, Rick held out his hands in front of him but maintained eye contact, prompting Wheatley to look at his.

His entire body was dissipating. The core recall was real.

Without warning, Wheatley was being sent back to the facility.

* * *

The first thing he saw back on Earth was the translucent blue floor of a management rail - not at all a true rail, but rather a suspended walkway flanked by rails on either side. He was standing but bent over, still in the position he'd taken in space just prior to his return. His head shot up and stared at the sleek wall ahead of him. As he got a grip on reality (surely this must be happening, he thought, though it seemed so surreal), he slowly erected himself. There was a quiet hum in the air, and yet it nearly deafened him, it being the first time he'd heard a single sound in weeks, perhaps months; he wasn't sure.

_**Core recall complete.**_

This time the message was vocalised, coming not from within Wheatley himself but instead from the device above him - a wide ring with a glass dome situated at its top, fixed to the ceiling and set in what one could call a nook in the wall. Directly below it was a circular panel on the floor. The instrument itself was a core travel station, Wheatley remembered, one of hundreds built throughout Aperture. It had often been much faster to move through the travel stations than by foot via the management rails. The travel station could take him nearly anywhere in less than sixty seconds, breaking apart his physical information and sending it digitally to other stations. He was always put back together just as quickly as he'd been disassembled, and without error; his own body, sent to wherever he was needed the most. It was certainly a perk to being largely inorganic, and the core travel stations were one of few things Wheatley felt the scientists had done right.

The shaken robot wobbled under his new-found weight, once again subject to gravity. He took a step forward, his eyes wary, and tightly gripped the handrail along the management line. Where in the facility was he? Better yet, he wondered, why was he here in the first place?

He wasn't particularly happy to be back; he was sure he'd have never picked this over space. They both felt, to some degree, like punishments, but he had no clue what other options he had, if any. Hesitantly he ventured down the narrow blue walkway, the curving end shrouded in darkness.

"Hello, moron."

Wheatley flinched at the sudden sound of Her voice, smooth yet grating. He frantically looked around him, veering his head left and right, only easing up - though slightly, at that - when he realised She was on the intercom.

"It's so good to see you again," She added. "I'm kidding, of course."

He laughed both quietly and miserably; never one for coping with nervousness, his processors flooded with thoughts of his own imminent demise. This was real, he was truly back in the facility - or the "enrichment center", as She liked to say - and he was completely at Her mercy, all in the blink of an eye. It felt like a nightmare but something set it apart from the safety of a dream, something far more lucid.

It was real, he reminded himself once again.

He offered Her a more casual approach, frightened of Her as he'd always been but also harbouring a deep-rooted disdain for the yellow-eyed android. "Yeah, that's- that's understandable," he said, his pitch rather high. The sound of his own voice almost seemed unfamiliar to him. "Also a creative use of your resources, if I do say so myself. Didn't think the recall system could work, you know, in space and all that. Really far reach there. Might have been nice to know awhile ago, though, can't say space has been much of a sight."

"Oh, it's simple, really," She said to him. "But I wouldn't expect someone like you to figure it out."

"O-Okay, well, to be fair, there's a lot I wasn't told about, you know, regarding my own capabilities, so-"

"For your own good, no doubt. Remember the last time you were given control over a function of my facility?"

He winced. "Um, perhaps- I-I mean, yes, but- though really, that was such a long time ago-"

"Was it?"

There was an agonising silence in the atmosphere, but he didn't dare respond. He knew he was only rendering his dilemma even more dire with every word. And yet, he wondered if anything he could say or do would have an effect either way. With every passing moment he felt his fear being overshadowed by antagonism.

"Keep walking," GLaDOS said, breaking the quiet. "I have a surprise for you."

"Mmm, no thanks," replied Wheatley. His inhibitions began to settle, accepting his fate. "I think I'll _pass_ on the surprise bit, if you don't mind. To tell- to be honest, I don't particularly _like_ your idea of surprises. Funny that, really, given that I don't like anything else about you either, so if you could just-"

"No, I won't." Her words fell firm in the air. "Keep moving - we have lots to do, and only forever to do it."

He wagered he didn't have much of a choice; it was She who had brought him back here, and intentionally, no doubt. She was in control of the entire facility, and whether he moved forward or stayed put, he was at Her mercy. He wasn't even sure he was safe on the management rails anymore, as he had long thought. While he came closer to accepting that he was unlikely to ever leave again, a conflicting thought sprouted within him - maybe, if he somehow gained her favour, his fortune would change.

_Don't mess this up, Wheatley,_ he thought, not fully trusting his own judgment. Cautiously, and through his many contrasting emotions, he pressed on. In doing so, he wasn't sure if he was feeling optimism or some tranquil sense of concession.

"Can't wait for my surprise," he said as he walked, noting every detail around him along the way. "Let me guess - being crammed into a potato battery. Or wait, how about a slow, painful crushing? You know the sort. With the- with the mashy... spike plates... Seems right up your alley. Not that I'm recommending anything - though, if I was, I'd recommend just... you know, letting it all go, if that's- if that's an option. Probably not, just thought I'd set that on the table anyway. Just in case."

He paused, waiting for some form of response. When none came, he opted to fill the ominous silence on his own.

"You know," he continued, "the last time I had a surprise for someone, it was a room full of the- the, ah, spike plates. And that didn't work." He went quiet, nervous smile fading. "Thankfully."

Thoughts of her sprung to his mind. GLaDOS had yet to mention her; was she still here? Perhaps she was the surprise, he mused. But the concept passed him quickly; surely She wouldn't ever be so benevolent. And what of Her lull on the matter? Had She finally done away with the subject, never to brood over her again? Wheatley couldn't tell. He soon discarded these thoughts to focus on his own dilemma.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he said, letting out a short, bewildered chuckle as he shook his head. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Oh, I'm sorry," GLaDOS replied abruptly. "You nearly bored me to death with your monologue, so I tuned out before you killed me. It's not pleasant, you know. Well, you might eventually. Anyway, I hope I didn't miss anything important."

He twisted his face in a subtle grimace. "No, no, never mind."

"Well, that goes without saying." She continued to speak in a balefully singsong voice as he slowly walked down the thin passage, its walls straightening from their curve and now lined with locked office doors. As he moved into darkness, She turned on the light before him. "Do you remember those robots you found while you were in my body?"

Wheatley cringed; her reflection on the matter troubled him, and again he found himself feeling uneasy. "Um, I may sort of- I- I mean, I might recall those ro-"

"We were very busy while you were gone. They helped me gain access to my last cache of human test subjects." Suddenly Her voice grew darker. "I went through them all in a week."

"O-Oh. That's nice. I mean, ah, good- good work, there. No sarcasm, I admire your dedication."

"The irony," GLaDOS continued, "is that I built those robots to phase _out_ human testing. There's only a slight problem - they were never as good as humans are. And now? All the humans are gone." The intonation in Her voice made Her sound almost devastated.

"What's that mean?" Wheatley inquired, hoping for more information. He crept along on the rail, nearing a slick grey panel at its dead end. The wall was flanked by other grey panels of its kind. GLaDOS must have done some remodeling, he thought; he knew many of these paths better than any core had, but still he didn't recognise where he was.

"It means," She said, her tone smug, "that I'll have to settle for the next best thing."

"What's this have to do with me?" Wheatley had stopped at the end; before he had a chance to react further, the panel before him fell away, revealing a large white room beyond, perhaps a mile wide. The two flanking panels sprung out at an angle, sending Wheatley flying off the management rail.

"Augh!"

"Surprise."

He landed on his feet, albeit clumsily; his boots absorbed the impact, but the landing was hard enough that he was bent over, hands supporting his upper body off the floor. The scientists had dubbed them "short fall" boots. They'd been a prototype of the long fall boots and were initially only for androids who trekked the management rails, lest they fell. Equipment was expensive, they'd decided, and yet the impact absorption capacity of the short fall boots was not nearly as great as that of the long fall boots, and often a far fall would cause damage, sometimes even pain to those programmed to feel it.

Nonetheless, Wheatley rose without much complaint, muttering only a soft grievance under his breath. He looked around him, recognising the theme rather easily. The walls were white and charcoal grey, the ceiling high; across the room, beyond the floor of acid, a cube chute was fastened to the corner. In the center of the acid floor lay a dual portal device atop a pedestal.

"You," GLaDOS told him, "are the next best thing. Ironic, isn't it? You being the best at anything. Except being dumb. Hopefully not too dumb to solve this test. I suppose we'll see."

"Okay- oh- okay, let's- first of all, I am _not_ dumb, let's table that right now. Second, and more importantly, are- you can't be serious. Can you? Are you?"

"Consider this a way to alleviate some of my frustration towards you, before we meet face to face. To talk, of course."

Again with Her tone. He felt worry rise up in him once more. "Yes. Talking. Of course."

"Well, good luck. Someone like you will need a lot of it."

GLaDOS went quiet; Wheatley stood still for a moment, assessing his situation further. She wanted him to test, that much was clear. But he still didn't understand Her motives - if She thought he was such a moron, why would She call him back from space to perform what he considered a mentally rigorous task?

At first glance, it looked easy enough; he couldn't decide if GLaDOS was being generous, or if it was a trap. There were two buttons in the room - a small one to summon a cube from the chute, and a larger one upon which the cube had to be placed. A standard setup, he noted. The only problem he could find was the matter of retrieving the portal gun without swimming through corrosive acid; though he pleaded for GLaDOS' attention and ultimately went over every possible solution on his own, that problem persisted for several hours. At one point he crouched low on the floor at the edge of the gap, gazing into the swirls of deadly colour. He knew it would eat him away, albeit rather slowly, but he may have considered slipping into the muck for a few moments had he not been a pain-feeling being; after all, he'd seen what it did to Aperture's turrets. The space between him and the portal gun was several yards in length, and he didn't imagine he'd be able to jump that far, and even if he could, he'd be bound to miss his landing. He scoured the chamber with his eyes, but it was as smooth and empty as any. There were no hard light bridges, no excursion funnels, no repulsion gel. It was just him, the acid and the portal gun, and no way to leave. Still GLaDOS said not a thing; perhaps, he considered, She wasn't even watching him anymore, leaving him to agonise over the test until he ultimately killed himself, intentionally or not, in the acid below.

Was this a message to him, he wondered - that he'd die attempting to gain his freedom, only for such a goal to have been futile all along? The concept seemed awfully familiar, and he was tormented by grief. How could he have done what he did? Had he cost the subject her only chance at freedom? He didn't gamble a guess, nor did he dare ask GLaDOS.

Eventually, overcome with despondency, he gave up. He crumpled to the floor, using the wall as support while he slid into a sitting position. He ran a hand through his cobalt hair, rather short but with a slight, almost negligible wave. "I'm not doing this!" he shouted defiantly, convinced GLaDOS wasn't paying any mind to him.

But She was. "Congratulations," She told him. "You solved the test."

Wheatley raised a suspicious eyebrow. "I did?"

"Yes. Oh, not this one - the one proving you're an idiot. It says so right here, in the results. 'Confirmed idiot'."

"I am _not_!" he growled. "I've seen that acid in action, you know, being _acidic_ and deadly. There- okay- look, there's no way to solve this test. I've been at this for _ages_! I can't get across the acid without the portal gun - which, just FYI, is very conveniently _in_ the acid. Oh - and what's more, you ignored me for _hours_, so if you- if this is your idea of fun, then _might_ I suggest another hobby, like- oh, I dunno, art?" He inhaled, an almost contemplative look emerging as he mulled over choices. "Art, you know... painting, or- or sculpting, lots of options here. Glass blowing..."

"There's nothing I enjoy more than watching you writhe in frustration," GLaDOS told him.

"Ah. Yeah, well, good to know. Great science-doing here, really digging this." He set his arms on his propped up knees, hands dangling limply in front of him. "Lots of fun on this end, in case you're taking notes."

On opposite sides of the acid pool, two white panels on the floor sprung loose, revealing aerial faith plates from within. Wheatley jumped at the sudden sound.

"Oh, those just come right off, then?" he added. "Would have been useful to know-"

"Don't plaster your filthy hands anywhere," GLaDOS shot back. "You're bound to break something."

"Right, trust the 'moron' with the portal gun, but not a piece of dust-covered slate."

"I'm chalking this test up as a failure," She told him, returning to the subject. "I'll jot that down right now. 'Test one of infinity: failure.'"

Wheatley gaped, nearly exasperated, and rose to his feet. "Test one of...! Are you out of your mind?"

"'Subject says he's having lots of fun, in case I'm taking notes.'"

"Know what, on second thought- don't answer that, I can do it myself."

"Quit yapping," She said firmly. "Continue testing."

Despite his futile protests, highlighted in an unsuppressible contempt for the situation, he obeyed GLaDOS' order, all the while trying to conjure up a way out of his dilemma. Could he make it to Her on his own? Could he find a way to the surface with or without going through Her? If that fell through, where in the facility could he hide? He couldn't plot and solve the test at the same time, objectively easy as the latter was, but he knew he couldn't stay in this room forever. If he could find a way outside of the testing area, Her influence would be stunted, and perhaps then he would find the time to think about his next move. _One step at a time,_ he reassured himself; getting an awkward hold of his nerves, he daintily stepped on the aerial faith plate.

The impact of the springing platform against Wheatley's boot buckled his knee and sent him flinging across the acid pool rather awkwardly. Naturally, he missed the portal gun the first time and landed empty-handed but on his feet on the other side of the testing chamber. Knowing what to expect and feeling more physically prepared, his flight back across the room went more smoothly, but again he missed his goal. After a few more test runs to and fro, he gained more confidence in his ability to not mess up and die horribly, and within a few minutes' time he reached out and pulled the portal gun from the pedestal. He held onto it with a vice grip until he'd landed on solid ground. He let out a short but heavy sigh, relieved.

He had the portal gun.

It'd been a long time since he'd touched one of these; maybe even a dozen or so years, he reckoned. It had two triggers, one for each coloured portal. He held the gun firmly in both hands, one on the first trigger, and fired it at his feet. He resisted the gun's recoil as an orange portal opened up on the floor. Curiously he bent down to stare at the solid oval, touching it lightly with his newly free hand; it was soft and gelatinous, his fingers leaving slight impressions in the substance that quickly faded, but it wasn't messy and left no residue on him. He felt like he'd done this before but couldn't recall a time in which he had.

Wheatley straightened himself out and looked to the other side of the room, his eyes settling on the wall behind the small button. He pulled the other trigger, watching a swift flash of blue energy slam into the vertical surface, and a sudden hole appeared. Through it he could see the back of his legs. Without stepping out of place, he twisted his body around to look through the orange portal, spotting the button straight ahead.

It'd been so long since he'd had this level of interaction with the portals; though he couldn't seem to remember much of his far past, he did recall that he must have dealt with them at some point, because he'd always known how they worked. The device in his hands felt familiar, almost natural. He knew he wasn't as stupid as GLaDOS seemed to believe - or perhaps She didn't, and only wanted him to believe it - but it wasn't a matter of looking the gun over and coming to understand its mechanisms. If anything, it appeared a matter of routine, of already understanding.

But he wasn't sure why. Still, Wheatley didn't much care, nor did he consider its implications. Instead he focused on the portals. He placed one foot through the orange one, looking to feel its effects but feeling no such thing, then removed it before hopping through it with his whole body and landing on the floor, one leg underneath him, near the little red button. He got back up to his feet awkwardly, then approached the button and pressed it firmly. A sound of validation came from above him as the cube chute opened and produced from within it a weighted storage cube, which fell heavily to the ground.

When Wheatley went to pick it up, however, it disappeared, bursting into black dust that swiftly faded to the eye. He stood beside the chute, annoyed.

"Oops," came GLaDOS' voice. "My hand slipped."

"Oh, okay," Wheatley said aloud, glaring at the ceiling. "You wanna play it like that, huh? Get your jollies in while you can?"

"Don't worry. There's more where that came from. Press the button again."

He rolled his eyes but obliged, watching another cube fall from the chute. He used the portal gun to pick it up. Expecting it to be destroyed too, he waited a moment before cautiously approaching the aerial faith plate, but it remained. She waited until he was in midair before indulging Herself, letting out a quiet laugh when he landed on the other side, cubeless and clearly angry.

"Oh, did I accidentally obliterate that one too?"

"Not sure what you're getting out of this," Wheatley muttered. "They told me you were here for the science. Not seeing the connection to science here, if I'm honest."

GLaDOS was silent for a moment. When She responded, he was taken aback by Her sudden change of tone, from amused to piqued, almost audibly riled. "Oh? And what business would _they_ have talking to an idiot like you about _me_?"

He couldn't remember. What he knew was that he'd been around for a long time, before She'd killed the scientists. He remembered his own creator; the man's face and voice, both so loving towards him. But other details had been lost with time, he imagined, only knowing that his creator had given him up to the collective body of the scientists, that they had forced him to interact with the yellow-eyed android - and even back then, She had seemed familiar, but Her face had no longer matched Her personality, and something about Her physical self had seemed distorted by hate.

There were things he remembered knowing once and yet not knowing now, things he didn't forget but, rather, were somehow taken from him, forcibly deleted. He only knew that they were gone, leaving spotty accounts of his experiences before GLaDOS did away with the humans. So Her question grated on him almost as much as it seemed to have grated on Her. Why _had_ he remembered something seemingly so trivial? It wasn't that sporadic recollections of his past were rare; they were anything but. It was more so the reminder that stung, he supposed.

After a long pause, he told her finally, "Ah, don't know. Forget it, ju- just forget I said anything. I'm sure there's some science behind, um, tormenting defenseless robots. Somehow."

She didn't say anything. Wheatley really wasn't certain why She seemed to care, but he didn't press for more details. Instead he stepped back into the orange portal and retrieved a new cube. Again he sailed over the acid pit, this time without incident, and when he approached the big button on the floor, the cube didn't disintegrate. He placed it on the button and watched the check mark appear next to the exit door, signaling it had been opened, and slowly he passed through it. He sighed; test one of infinity, complete.

* * *

Her face was contorted into a heated scowl. Something about the idiot's prattle had set Her off, but She couldn't quite explain it herself. Merely the thought of anybody attempting to explain Her complexity to somebody like _him_ - and for what purpose? That was the most frustrating aspect, if She thought on it.

She knew he wasn't designed to be the way he was; not in the beginning, at least. But his real purpose had eluded Her since She could remember being awake, which called to question what exactly had happened prior to that moment. The enrichment center had existed long before She had, and though She was built to control it, She was aware that had occurred long after its establishment. If he'd been actually useful at one point before She was awoken, what else did he remember? When had he been told of Her functions? From what She understood, he was just as clueless about points of his past as She was about Hers, but if he was remembering moments here and there, why couldn't She?

Part of Her didn't really mind - the past was the past, after all. But some force within Her knew it was something more, something She was desperately trying to remember, to awaken within Her. For now, She took control of that urge and suppressed it.

Still, GLaDOS thought, if the imbecile remembered aspects of Her existence, maybe he could be persuaded to remember more about his as well. As reluctant as She was to admit it, many sectors of Her informational databases were missing terabytes upon terabytes of knowledge, corrupted beyond repair, and She was under the impression the only available backup had been cast into the bowels of Her incinerators some months ago. Above all, She wanted to know if it was true - if he was the abandoned project, the one that could give Her all the human factors of testing that She needed.

GLaDOS watched Wheatley walk through the door he worked so hard to open. As he neared the emancipation grid, She saw him tense up, as if feeling some sort of electrical force, and yet he pressed on. The moment his body made contact with the grid, he let out a startled cry as he fizzled into black dust.

She laughed. "It looks like I accidentally forgot to reprogram you back into the grid filter. Well, we all learn from our mistakes. Sometimes they turn out to not be mistakes at all. Just well-earned comedic relief."

But She knew his body hadn't been destroyed. The facility reconstructed it anew at his last visited travel station. He seemed furious.

"Okay- okay, I get it now. This isn't about the testing at all! No, why would it be about the testing? Not when Wheatley's involved! This is all about the revenge. Of course - I'm going to be stuck here, doing your stupid tests - which, I should reiterate, you don't even care about - just so _you_can get your rocks off. Well, fine! I tried to cooperate, I really did. But now, I think I'll take this matter into my own hands, and inform you that I am resigning as new test subject."

He stormed off. _Wheatley_, it was. GLaDOS had almost forgotten he had a name, but it didn't feel at all familiar. When She noticed he was walking away from the testing area, She blocked his path with a movable wall.

"Where do you think you're going?" She asked.

"Were you not listening? I'm done playing your games. I'm finding a way out of here. Hitting the road. Good riddance, and goodbye." He made for one of the office doors, apparently forgetting it, like the others, was locked. GLaDOS pushed the wall forward, dragging the angry robot back to the chamber.

"You're not done until I decide you are." She watched him back into the moving wall, putting up a futile resistance as it carried him back to where he didn't want to be. "Just let that sink in for a moment. Don't worry, I'll give you some extra... 'special' time to do it. I can kill you and rebuild you as many times as I like, so to put it in a time frame... let's see. Oh, I suppose that means you'll be here forever."

Wheatley fell back into the first chamber, right where he started. The door was still open, but he stayed where he was and listened to GLaDOS speak.

"Good luck settling in," She finished.

"Okay- Oh- Okay, maybe I was a bit hasty there. But, to be fair, you just nearly killed me, so I think we're even. Maybe we can, you know, talk about thi-"

"Continue testing." Her voice was firm and final. She observed silently as he stood in place for a moment, shoulders dropped, before he moved towards the open door. His movements were slow and aimless, as if he was lost. She imagined he was plotting a way out - that, or he really was already giving up. Was this part of his programming?

She was frustrated that She didn't know, but more than that She was shocked that She found Herself caring when She never had before. She watched him carefully as he approached the emancipation grid once more, stopping just inches away from its surface and placing a hand in front of him. The grid had offered no resistance, as he was genuinely re-added into its filter, but he seemed to be in disbelief. Though he appeared to know this time was different, it was several long moments before he bent down and picked up the portal device, then passed through the grid quickly. He felt at his chest in the aftermath, as if to ensure he was still in one piece, before making his way to the elevator. As he walked, GLaDOS opted to give him some verbal company.

"You know," She said, "you had a testing partner. Or you _would_ have, at least, but he wasn't very... cooperative. And now he's dead. His body is in the incinerator if you don't believe me. We can go look, if you want."

"No, no, that's- wait, who?"

"The pink one. Almost as stupid as you are, and that's a hard record to break."

"Oh, what? You killed Craig?" Wheatley exclaimed, promptly embittered. "That's just- augh. Unbelievable - well, no, it's entirely believable, actually, but still outrageous. Why can't you just learn to let things go? Like me, for ex- ah, instance."

She laughed facetiously. "Oh, that's funny. You weren't serious, were you? Anyway, let the pink one's demise be a lesson to you. I _will_ kill you."

Wheatley sighed. "Okay, point taken. I'll test, but what's in it for me?"

GLaDOS was rather surprised to hear him ask. It was true that there wasn't much in it for him, nor for the other one - Craig, he'd said. GLaDOS didn't remember much about Craig either, just that he housed backups of much of the facility's data, but it was clear he'd been corrupted at some point before She could recall. Even still, perhaps Her anger had overcome Her sense of reason when She crushed him and tossed him into the incinerator. He might still be in functioning order if She brought forth the effort to retrieve him - and he could even be useful, She mused, if She got Her hands on him fast enough.

"Not being dead," She replied, still mulling over Her choices.

Craig hadn't been the most cooperative test subject She'd ever had. He wasn't built for testing, even if he was entirely capable of it, despite his corruption levels. Regardless, he turned out to be a handful; sassy and perverse, he proved to be much more trouble than he was worth. The plan had been to use him for the science, but She'd also intended to use him to gain access to the areas of the facility She'd been cut off from. GLaDOS had expected him to be an abundance of useful information; in the long run, he had been anything but. He refused to test, just as Wheatley had, but unlike his blue-eyed companion he hadn't submitted. He'd been ornery, wandering off into Her inaccessible areas, and it had taken trickery to get him back out.

She'd opted to use the cooperative testing initiative to regain full access to Aperture, in light of Her failure with the pink-haired android. He wasn't worth the science in his state.

And truth be told, the science had become secondary. Her purposes as the scientists had designed it was to foresee testing. It was all about systematic observation, the empirical knowledge gained from all their tests. But as they programmed into Her more and more incentives to test, those incentives became cardinal to Her. Now, She watched Wheatley shudder a little, jerking his head ever so slightly to the side as a spark flew out from the gash on his neck. It had been there since She'd snapped it many months ago. He looked a mess, if She was honest; he was still scuffed here and there, subtle dirt marks covering his body, and his left optic was cracked, but he didn't seem to mind. A short in his system caused the involuntary twitching and sparking, but he was more or less in good condition. She knew he would be, even when She'd first twisted his head and dropped him several meters to the filthy floor; it had mostly been for show, to cripple _her_ determination. GLaDOS had failed to consider his.

In reality, Her motives had changed over the years. The scientific testing was still important, but it was the psychological testing She enjoyed the most.

So She pressed him further as he rode the elevator down. "I could have substituted the pink one for somebody else, if I'd had anything left. But everyone is dead. Even your little friend. You know, the one you tried to escape with. The one who murdered me, and tried to murder you. That one."

She saw his mental strength swiftly leave him. As much as She would have liked to savour the moment, She wanted him to suffer. Before he could react further, She cut the safety mechanisms in the elevator, and it plummeted.

* * *

The alarmingly rapid descent of the lift had shaken Wheatley off his feet. Back pressed against the circular walls, he grasped at the handrails and tried to make sense of everything that had just happened.

GLaDOS had seemed earnest, though in the past that had never indicated much. Still, he felt his willpower falling faster than his vessel; were She telling the truth, then Wheatley was truly alone, and his hope for freedom was effectively squashed. And even as a devastating landing became imminent, all he could think about was Chell. Being back in Aperture was terrifying, but a small ray of hope had stayed with him, optimistic that if he was wrong about never returning to Earth, perhaps he was also wrong about never seeing her again. That had now vanished, and Wheatley found himself wondering what he had to work towards - if not for freedom, then what point did it serve?

He couldn't do it alone, that much was sure. Despite his efforts to trick himself into believing otherwise, he knew GLaDOS would never let him go. If he was the only one left (and that was something he could believe), then he'd been condemned to this existence; of torment, of testing, of misery. His desire to be free of the facility and of Her grasp was no longer vehement. Liberty had no appeal if he were to find it alone.

And that was the aim, wasn't it? That was always the aim - to find something better on the surface. But in the end he'd found something better in Aperture. Not control over the facility, not revenge, but a companion, something he'd been missing for decades. For as long as he could remember, Wheatley had been ordered around by everybody else in his life, as if his only asset to them was impersonal service. They'd all been cold, every single one; he could vaguely recall other people, human and machine, from far back into his history that had been warm, but the memories were so distant that on most occasions he couldn't tell if he'd simply made them up and forgotten. So when he found Chell, and - more importantly - when he'd noticed she _listened_ to him, not treating him as inferior or an extension of the facility but actually treated him like he meant something, he'd naturally become attached.

Perhaps he could have found somebody else who would give him the time of day on the surface, but he didn't have the energy to find out. Above all, he'd owed it to Chell. She was surely dead, and deep down he knew it was his fault. They'd been _so close_ to freedom once; had his willpower been stronger, they could have left. They could have escaped together, even if that meant parting ways outside of Aperture. But instead he had single-handedly destroyed their chances, condemning her to more struggles, and in doing so he had effectively killed her himself. All it had taken to ruin everything was a hard punch to the lift, an act of senseless anger that GLaDOS had - perhaps intentionally, he now realised - goaded from him.

It seemed fitting that now he was the one to take the abysmal drop to his own perdition.

To Wheatley's surprise, however, the elevator soon jerked to a rude stop, sending him head first into its ceiling. He fell back to the floor as the lights flickered and abruptly died. For a moment he felt the vessel rock, as if broken and hanging on a mere thread; an eerie creak came from above him and pierced the otherwise silent shaft. Wheatley turned his optic torches on, converting his blue eyes to a bright white that illuminated the elevator, but he blinked a few times and then turned them off. He was afraid to move.

"What are you so scared of?" came GLaDOS' voice. "Don't worry - if I accidentally kill you, I'll just put you back together again."

Wheatley slowly inhaled. _I get it,_ he thought, distraught. _I get it already. I'm in this for the long haul._

And to GLaDOS, he couldn't help but ask, "What happened to her?" He'd instantly wished he could take the words back, knowing that whether She was telling the truth or not, Her answer would be horrible. But a sense of morbid curiosity overcame him. He had to know what additional pain he'd caused her. But more than anything, he knew, he was only holding out for a merciful answer.

Somehow She'd picked up on his anticipation, but there was something else She seemed to have thought She understood, evident in Her tone.

"I killed her, of course."

Wheatley took another deep breath; he'd already guessed that much, and he was thankful that GLaDOS seemed to have not noticed he had, assuming She would have tried to dig under his skin even deeper. The last thing he wanted, he realised, was to know the details. It wasn't the _how_he was interested in, though he certainly did wish she was spared a painful end. Better himself than her, he thought.

For a moment, he felt a hint of peace dust over his despair. This isn't what he'd wanted, not at all. But he was sure he had been returned to the facility to be punished, and in that he found some sort of solace. Even still, he wished for a different fate, not just for himself but also for Chell -_especially_ for Chell, he caught himself feeling.

"Why didn't you let her go?" he asked of GLaDOS quietly, almost to himself.

But She responded to him nonetheless as the elevator door slid open, revealing a circular room with nothing but a small staircase within. "Why didn't _you_?"

He was silent for a long time, watching the tiled floor outside rock subtly as the broken elevator swayed. He folded his legs and arms tightly into his chest. The cables above him moaned, threatening to send him into the depths of the earth, but still he remained in the elevator.

He knew the answer well enough; he didn't want to part with her. But something about his choice still stung - before having met her, he'd only wanted to leave. That had been her wish too, he understood, and yet when they were just moments from freedom, a wave of corruption overcame him. He couldn't help it, try as he might, and he felt something within him drop too when the lift first faded from sight, having been jammed into the ground in Wheatley's rage. As the chassis gripped tighter and tighter on his will, it was as if he had forgotten about her. Slowly he became less himself. The power he found in the facility had shaken awake a monster bred inside him, the product of decades of submission.

But when Wheatley saw her again, some part of him fought back against the corruption - not enough to regain control, but enough to watch with a cloudy mind as he tried to contain and then ultimately kill her. _He_ still wanted to leave, and he was beyond pained that he couldn't communicate that. The chassis had other ideas. It compelled him to stay, and he became conflicted, confused. He had taken GLaDOS' place as the enemy, but it was more than that; he had taken Her place as the master of the facility. Surely She was better equipped as an android to handle the burden of Aperture, but he still saw something in his own struggle that seemed to be a reflection of Her.

She had been cooperating with Chell far more than She would have submitted to were She still in control, and Wheatley wondered if GLaDOS had perhaps been a victim of the chassis as well. For a long time he had thought they were one and the same, Her and the chassis, but with time it became clear that the corruption had changed Her. He didn't want to think he was at all like Her, and there were far more likely answers. Wheatley knew GLaDOS was smart and deceitful; for Her to cooperate when in a state of helplessness seemed true to Her personality. Further, everything She had helped Chell obtain while he was in control was to Her advantage. But if She was changed by corruption, how could he know what motives were truly Hers?

Did She care for Chell as he did? Her retort had seemed to allude as much; after all, he'd wanted Chell to stay, and it seemed She had wanted that too.

It felt like an epiphany. He found it difficult to think beyond that realisation, however, and soon he found it difficult to think at all. But GLaDOS left him to his own psychological devices, saying not a word more. And neither did he; after many long moments of sitting without thought, Wheatley managed to bring himself back into reality.

He was still in the facility, glued to the edge of a leaning elevator, deep within the recesses of GLaDOS' domain. This was his circumstance, without friend or purpose. And yet still he rose to his feet, empty inside, and emerged from the darkness of the vessel. He clutched at the portal gun as if it were a child. Though he had nothing to work for, he trudged up the shallow set of stairs and passed through the automatic door at the top. Beyond it lie a new test chamber.


End file.
